TAKE YOUR SHOT
1/5/2026 1:13:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Littlepage-Buggs finishes with 13 points, 20 rebounds in road win
By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
AMES, Iowa – Sitting out the entire fourth quarter of the last game didn't seem to shake the confidence of Darianna Littlepage-Buggs' one bit.
With the 10th-ranked Iowa State defense playing off her, the Baylor senior forward hit her first five shots and recorded her seventh double-double of the season with 13 points and a career-high-tying 20 rebounds to help the No. 22/21 Bears hand the Cyclones their first loss of the season, 72-70, Sunday afternoon at Hilton Coliseum.
"We knew they were going to play off some people," Littlepage-Buggs said. "If you're going to play off us, when we get that shot, we're going to shoot it, we're going to take it and we're going to stay confident. We really poured into each other this game. We didn't let each other get down. If you saw somebody get down, you'd see somebody running up to them, 'Pick your head up, it's not over. We're in this.'''
That was especially the case with sophomore guard Taliah Scott, who hit the game-winning pull-up jumper with 2.9 seconds left and scored all of her 21 points in the second half after starting out 0-for-8.
"We talked her up," Littlepage-Buggs said of Scott, who scored 20-plus points for the 11th time. "We were like, 'Hey, don't stop shooting, we need you to shoot.' And look, we won the game because of T-Scotty. It was amazing seeing everybody touch the ball and step up and hit their shots."
While Scott led the way in scoring for the Bears (13-3, 2-1), Yuting Deng scored 10 of her 12 points in the second quarter, Jana Van Gytenbeek had 11 points and seven assists with only one turnover and Kiersten Johnson hit three 3-pointers and finished with nine points, nine rebounds and two blocks.
"There's a lot of things to the win," Baylor coach Nicki Collen said. "I think we're not talking enough, probably, about Jana and her floor game. I said to somebody, 'especially being in this building and seeing (former Iowa State player) Emily Ryan in the building, Jana had a very Emily Ryan-ish game. (She) played all 40 minutes, 11 points, seven assists, only one turnover. She's continuing to increase her assist-turnover ratio, which is important for us."
Scott, who got a screen by Johnson to hit the game winner over 6-3 Audi Crooks, said Littlepage-Buggs is the team's glue.
"Without her, we don't win," Scott said. "She was a beast on the boards, she gets every rebound. She set the tone for us defensively. Offensively, she can get hers. She understands the game at a really high level. Having her on the team, especially a veteran like that, that's all the difference in the world for us."
Facing a physical Iowa State team (14-1, 2-1) that came in ranked 20th in the country in rebounding margin, Littlepage-Buggs' 20-rebound game helped Baylor win the rebounding battle, 46-39, with the Bears scoring 11 second-chance points off 14 offensive boards.
"I knew this game was going to be really hard, and rebounds are going to be super important," she said. "I always think, 'Hey, I'm going to get the rebound. Nobody's going to deny me this game.' If that means having zero points and 50 rebounds, I was going to do that. And I think my team looks to me to do that."
Collen said Littlepage-Buggs, the conference leader with 10.6 boards per game, "just pursued the ball."
"That was the beauty of guarding the position she guarded was her ability to fly to the boards and just go get all the loose ones," Collen said. "She does that better than, to me, almost anybody in the country."
Baylor also got it done on the defensive end, holding the Cyclones 20 points below their scoring average, 38% shooting overall and just 9-of-31 from outside the arc. Coming into the game, Iowa State was No. 3 in the nation in shooting percentage (52.63) and 13th in 3-point field goal percentage (38.2).
The nation's leading scorer, Crooks was held to just four second-half points on 2-of-9 shooting after hitting nine of her first 10 shots and scoring 22 points in the first half.
"You can't guard Crooks one-on-one," Collen said, "so you've got two choices. You can front and play backside help, and they're going to skip it to their 50% 3-point shooters. Or, you can roll the dice like we did. They have one player that's less efficient than everybody else they play. That doesn't mean Jada Williams isn't an elite player. Just efficiency-wise, she's at her best when she's spraying the ball around and getting assists and then mixing in a transition bucket and a pull-up and an open three."
Littlepage-Buggs said the Bears just had to focus on the defensive game plan designed by associate head coach Tony Greene.
"Audi Crooks, she was going to get hers," Littlepage-Buggs said, "so that was a given. We knew we weren't going to stop her, but we were going to make it hard for her. And we knew Addy Brown is a really good passer, so we've got to make it hard all night. I give a lot of credit to my teammates, because they did a really good job today."
Even on the last play of the game, Baylor's defense came up big again, when Littlepage-Buggs deflected a Brown pass to Crooks as the final seconds ticked off the clock.
"We just had to deny," said Littlepage-Buggs, who added two assists, two blocks and two steals. "Two seconds on the clock, and it's their ball. It's all or nothing at that point. Did we want to go home with a (loss), or did we want to win? We knew who they were going to. Really hard deny and tip it and just play solid. I think we did a really good job of executing at the end of the game."
After winning back-to-back road games against ranked teams, the Bears return home to face Colorado (11-4, 2-1) at 7 p.m. Thursday and Kansas (11-4, 1-2) at 2 p.m. next Sunday, Jan. 11, at Foster Pavilion.
"Every game matters in the Big 12," Collen said. "Losing that game at home (to Texas Tech), and then going on the road and winning two, we've put ourselves back in position to stay in contention. And as much as it's still early, that matters now, even though it's a long season. Proud of our girls, proud of the way they all played and happy to get out of here with a win."
Baylor Bear Insider
AMES, Iowa – Sitting out the entire fourth quarter of the last game didn't seem to shake the confidence of Darianna Littlepage-Buggs' one bit.
With the 10th-ranked Iowa State defense playing off her, the Baylor senior forward hit her first five shots and recorded her seventh double-double of the season with 13 points and a career-high-tying 20 rebounds to help the No. 22/21 Bears hand the Cyclones their first loss of the season, 72-70, Sunday afternoon at Hilton Coliseum.
"We knew they were going to play off some people," Littlepage-Buggs said. "If you're going to play off us, when we get that shot, we're going to shoot it, we're going to take it and we're going to stay confident. We really poured into each other this game. We didn't let each other get down. If you saw somebody get down, you'd see somebody running up to them, 'Pick your head up, it's not over. We're in this.'''
That was especially the case with sophomore guard Taliah Scott, who hit the game-winning pull-up jumper with 2.9 seconds left and scored all of her 21 points in the second half after starting out 0-for-8.
"We talked her up," Littlepage-Buggs said of Scott, who scored 20-plus points for the 11th time. "We were like, 'Hey, don't stop shooting, we need you to shoot.' And look, we won the game because of T-Scotty. It was amazing seeing everybody touch the ball and step up and hit their shots."
While Scott led the way in scoring for the Bears (13-3, 2-1), Yuting Deng scored 10 of her 12 points in the second quarter, Jana Van Gytenbeek had 11 points and seven assists with only one turnover and Kiersten Johnson hit three 3-pointers and finished with nine points, nine rebounds and two blocks.
"There's a lot of things to the win," Baylor coach Nicki Collen said. "I think we're not talking enough, probably, about Jana and her floor game. I said to somebody, 'especially being in this building and seeing (former Iowa State player) Emily Ryan in the building, Jana had a very Emily Ryan-ish game. (She) played all 40 minutes, 11 points, seven assists, only one turnover. She's continuing to increase her assist-turnover ratio, which is important for us."
Scott, who got a screen by Johnson to hit the game winner over 6-3 Audi Crooks, said Littlepage-Buggs is the team's glue.
"Without her, we don't win," Scott said. "She was a beast on the boards, she gets every rebound. She set the tone for us defensively. Offensively, she can get hers. She understands the game at a really high level. Having her on the team, especially a veteran like that, that's all the difference in the world for us."
Facing a physical Iowa State team (14-1, 2-1) that came in ranked 20th in the country in rebounding margin, Littlepage-Buggs' 20-rebound game helped Baylor win the rebounding battle, 46-39, with the Bears scoring 11 second-chance points off 14 offensive boards.
"I knew this game was going to be really hard, and rebounds are going to be super important," she said. "I always think, 'Hey, I'm going to get the rebound. Nobody's going to deny me this game.' If that means having zero points and 50 rebounds, I was going to do that. And I think my team looks to me to do that."
Collen said Littlepage-Buggs, the conference leader with 10.6 boards per game, "just pursued the ball."
"That was the beauty of guarding the position she guarded was her ability to fly to the boards and just go get all the loose ones," Collen said. "She does that better than, to me, almost anybody in the country."
Baylor also got it done on the defensive end, holding the Cyclones 20 points below their scoring average, 38% shooting overall and just 9-of-31 from outside the arc. Coming into the game, Iowa State was No. 3 in the nation in shooting percentage (52.63) and 13th in 3-point field goal percentage (38.2).
The nation's leading scorer, Crooks was held to just four second-half points on 2-of-9 shooting after hitting nine of her first 10 shots and scoring 22 points in the first half.
"You can't guard Crooks one-on-one," Collen said, "so you've got two choices. You can front and play backside help, and they're going to skip it to their 50% 3-point shooters. Or, you can roll the dice like we did. They have one player that's less efficient than everybody else they play. That doesn't mean Jada Williams isn't an elite player. Just efficiency-wise, she's at her best when she's spraying the ball around and getting assists and then mixing in a transition bucket and a pull-up and an open three."
Littlepage-Buggs said the Bears just had to focus on the defensive game plan designed by associate head coach Tony Greene.
"Audi Crooks, she was going to get hers," Littlepage-Buggs said, "so that was a given. We knew we weren't going to stop her, but we were going to make it hard for her. And we knew Addy Brown is a really good passer, so we've got to make it hard all night. I give a lot of credit to my teammates, because they did a really good job today."
Even on the last play of the game, Baylor's defense came up big again, when Littlepage-Buggs deflected a Brown pass to Crooks as the final seconds ticked off the clock.
"We just had to deny," said Littlepage-Buggs, who added two assists, two blocks and two steals. "Two seconds on the clock, and it's their ball. It's all or nothing at that point. Did we want to go home with a (loss), or did we want to win? We knew who they were going to. Really hard deny and tip it and just play solid. I think we did a really good job of executing at the end of the game."
After winning back-to-back road games against ranked teams, the Bears return home to face Colorado (11-4, 2-1) at 7 p.m. Thursday and Kansas (11-4, 1-2) at 2 p.m. next Sunday, Jan. 11, at Foster Pavilion.
"Every game matters in the Big 12," Collen said. "Losing that game at home (to Texas Tech), and then going on the road and winning two, we've put ourselves back in position to stay in contention. And as much as it's still early, that matters now, even though it's a long season. Proud of our girls, proud of the way they all played and happy to get out of here with a win."
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